The invention relates to motorized pumps, and more particularly, to breastpumps.
Breastpumps are convenient for nursing mothers, because, among other things, they allow the nursing mother to draw off breast milk to feed to the child at a later time when the mother may not be present. For some mothers, breastpumps are required, particularly when the child has suckling difficulties, or if the mother has problems with excessive or deficient milk production, or cannot empty completely. Some mothers also require breastpumps in the event of soreness or injury of the mammilla, or sunken mammilla.
Manually-driven breastpumps are commonplace. However, they typically require the use of both hands to pump a single breast—one to hold the breast shield/pump in place, and the other to drive the pump. There are also manually driven breastpumps that can be operated with one hand, as by using a lever-type drive mechanism. They also obviously require some manual effort to operate.
Motor-driven pumps for breastpumps, such as battery-powered or house-current powered, also have been marketed. While eliminating the need for manually reciprocating the pumping mechanism, those pumps made for operating two breast shield assemblies at once—double-pumping—have typically been quite large, and often quite heavy. Smaller battery-powered pumps which are part of the breast shield assembly itself have not historically been adapted to, or capable of, double-pumping off the same pump.